An Accent of Human Sorrow
by Shadowrose89
Summary: It seemed that being born was his greatest crime of all.


Madeline winced as the needle penetrated the thin flesh at the crook of her arm. "Don't fret my dear," the doctor reassured her, "There we are, all done!" he spoke to her as he did to comfort children. Madeline nodded as he placed a bandage over the tiny wound.

"I don't know what I would do without you Doctor Rothenberg," The dark haired young woman muttered gratefully, rubbing her swollen midsection.

The doctor ignored her show of appreciation and showed his very pregnant patient to the door. "The baby will come in a week or two, be sure to call me." He informed her dismissively, closing the door before she could ask another damned question.

The hour was very late, and his office was otherwise abandoned. The doctor sat down in his office for a smoke, a guilty habit of his. He needed to calm his nerves. Everything depended on Madeline's child, but she had managed to come this far. The right mother was essential in this experiment, and he had been so fortunate to have ignorant, impecunious Madeline practically fall into his lap. The time was coming; the outcome of years of work was at hand.

One week later the call came. It was early morning. Rothenberg canceled his appointments for the day and sped towards the shoebox that Madeline called home. It was just the two of them in the cold of her house. The father was an unknown element, a potential risk to Rothenberg's careful calculations. He prepped the area for delivery forcing the giddy excitement he felt down under a stony expression. This child he had created would be the perfect human, perhaps a god! And he Rothenberg, would be all the greater for having created such majesty! The delivery was awful for Madeline, he could tell. His capacity for sympathy was limited however, and her screams and sobs grated his nerves.

The child was delivered quickly. The doctor instinctively knew something was wrong, and after cutting the cord, pulled the child into the light to examine him. It was hideous. With morbid fascination, Rothenberg cleaned the infant, examining the horror. His heart sank, and he felt no remorse, but instead anger at his failure. He felt a strong desire to drown the _thing_ in the warm water before him, or to hurl it to the ground, but instead handed it unceremoniously to the mother who waited anxiously for her child.

Madeline screamed and shoved the now shrieking infant back at the doctor. "No, God, no!" she cried, shrinking back fearfully.

"Madeline, take your child!" Rothenberg demanded cruelly.

"No, no," she whimpered pitifully, "Please take it away! I can't bear to look at it again!"

"Very well," he answered, suddenly calm, "The child does not exist, Madeline. It was a still birth. That is what you are to tell your friends and family." The tearful woman nodded; she was so easy to manipulate that Rothenberg nearly pitied her.

"I am going to destroy it," he promised her, knowing that it would relieve her. She did not view it as human, neither of them could. One could not look upon it and feel that it was meant to live. He had no intention of destroying it however, at least not yet.

"Do not contact me again," he instructed as he placed the child in a cloth bag and slung it unceremoniously over his should. The woman was crying again; she was so tiresome. "Madeline, did you hear me?" he pressed angrily.

"I won't," she replied softly staring into her pale hands.

He left. He suspected she may take her own life. He decided that such would be ideal. The child shrieked like a banshee from the passenger seat as he drove to his large, lonely home in Pinewood, a nice neighborhood where wealthy people liked to keep to themselves.

Seven years later a somber young boy sat in the semi darkness of his bedroom reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Today was Erik's birthday, but the thought brought him no joy. The seven year old had learned that birthdays were no source of happiness; in fact they were more miserable than any other day.

His keen ears picked up the faint click of the lock which kept him sealed in the basement, and Erik dropped his book and turned in apprehension towards his bedroom door. The lock itself was no ordinary lock, which Erik had been able to pick since the age of five, but the latest in a series of replacements. Erik merely considered them puzzles, and in time would crack this one as well. He reached for his mask, for he knew that to see his face would incense his master. He had no desire for punishment, which would often be as mentally and emotionally devastating as it was physically. You could not say that his master was not creative in his tortures.

Luckily the mask was in place before the door opened. His master leaned against the door and said, almost amicably, "Alright, let us see how you have progressed this year."

Erik, who was rarely compliant, rose from his seat and approached the doctor. Rothenberg eyed him suspiciously. "You know the drill, hands up, palms open." Erik did as he was told and was roughly patted down like a criminal, but he had always been treated as such. It seemed that being born was his greatest crime of all.

The tests and procedures Erik was required to go through were always unpleasant, but today the doctor was particularly vindictive and when it was over he demanded to see Erik's face.

"No," Erik replied, "You will beat me."

"Do not disobey me!" the doctor shouted and slammed the child against the wall, ripping his mask away.

Erik hid his face in his hands, but they were pried away. Rothenberg forced himself to examine the face, the thing which had haunted his days and dreams alike since he had brought the accursed being into his home.

"No," he muttered, "You are my greatest failure. You are lucky to be alive; a lesser man would have ended your life. But I, I know that one must learn from his mistakes. I meant for the world to love you! To love you! But you inspire nothing but fear, horror, disgust, and no one on this earth could love you. But I am merciful enough to let you live. Your mind is still a jewel, but the rest such a dismal failure…" he trailed off, squelching again the desire to kill it, to end it while he still could. One day, when nothing more could be learned, he would put Erik down, he would try again, he would create true beauty.

Erik grimaced, tears filling his yellow eyes, stinging the raw parts of his face, "You're hurting me."

He saw the rage building in the doctor's eyes, recognized the snap, and anticipated the pain before it came. "Am I?" snarled the man, and then the world went black.

Erik woke up in his bed, and his head felt as though it was splitting in two. He smelled blood and realized his mask, now back on his face, was soaked in it. The pain made him cry which made more pain. Eventually he forced himself to stop. Anyone else would have been blind in the child's lightless room, but Erik's eyes could perceive every detail. He staggered into the attached bathroom and began to wash himself free of the blood and the stinging salty tears.

When he was done he curled up again on his bed, but did not sleep. He thought hard about his existence and knew his survival depended upon escape. In a secret compartment he had created in the light fixture, Erik had a few tools which he had pilfered from the doctor. With these, he set about solving the newest lock installed on his door. It took some time, but the child was eventually able to crack it.

Erik knew that this lock was not the only obstacle he would face, but from numerous other excursions, he had a good idea about what to expect. Silence was key, as was avoiding multiple motion detectors which were always arranged in a different position. As it turned out the doctor had no new tricks up his sleeve this time, his resources had not kept up with Erik's ever increasing ingenuity. That night, Erik left that place forever.

Erik had never been permitted out of the basement. The outside world was beautiful, but foreign to him. He took his mask off and felt the caress of the night air, reveling in his new freedom. He remained in the shadows however, wary of pursuit. Erik was optimistic about his escape. He knew no one except the doctor knew about him, and that the doctor would have no help searching for him. As he made his way farther and farther from the dreaded doctor, he began to let down his guard slightly.

As the sky began to pinken with sunlight, the boy felt his stomach rumble. He was hungry and tired from walking. Ahead he saw a coffee shop had just opened and he approached the building nervously. The door tinkled as it opened and Erik entered cautiously. His eyes took in the pastries and the smell of hot coffee and chocolate made his stomach rumble audibly. "You sound hungry," a voice teased. Erik nearly jumped; he had never heard a voice other than the doctor's and his own. He quickly identified the voice's owner, a plump woman with her back to him behind the counter. "I'll be right with you," she remarked cheerfully.

Erik approached the counter, but he couldn't quite see over it, so he waited patiently for the woman's attention while admiring the delicacies spread out behind the glass. "Now what can I get you?" the woman inquired as she turned, "Oh, where did you go?"

"I'm down here," Erik offered, raising his hands above the counter.

The woman approached the child, "Where are your parents, Hon…"

Erik looked up at her and time seemed to freeze for a moment as the smile on the woman's kindly face turned to an expression of pure horror. The scream pierced his sensitive ears in a way that seemed familiar to him although he had never met a woman before. Erik bolted, disappearing into the breaking dawn. When he finally stopped running, he collapsed onto the damp ground and cried, his stomach still stubbornly complaining. He didn't care that he was hungry anymore. He pulled the mask out of his pocket and set it firmly on his face; he did not need to learn twice that all that the doctor had said was true.


End file.
